As the fastest camels in the Arabian Peninsula galloped across a track in the Saudi desert, Kasseem Dean, a Grammy Award-winning hip-hop producer from the Bronx, watched nervously from an air-conditioned VIP viewing room.
Waiters in black vests treated the crowd to lemonade and red velvet cupcakes. Women in summer dresses milled around off-white benches, drinking fizzy mocktails.
Although the sprinting camels were the main event, Mr. Dean, better known as Swizz Beatz, felt like all eyes in the room were on him — one of the newest entrants to the wealthy Saudi camel racing scene. Four years after winning his first race, he has spent millions of dollars buying 48 racing camels, catapulting him into the sport’s most elite circles.
“Once you discover it, you enter a completely different world,” said Dean, 45, whose camel team, “Saudi Bronx,” has won trophies across the region and deepened his attachment to the kingdom, which he first visited in 2006.
He now travels to Saudi Arabia so often that he considers it a second home. He is a co-founder of a roller skating rink in the desert of AlUla, where the camel race was held, and has an apartment in the capital Riyadh; a few years ago he was granted Saudi citizenship.
None of this would have seemed highly improbable not long ago. But the absurd has become commonplace in the new Saudi Arabia, as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman unleashes seismic social change while deepening political repression, reshaping the conservative Islamic country.
Ten years ago, music and gender mixing in public were effectively banned. Today, young Saudis dance to raves in abandoned hospitalsand women – who were not allowed to drive until 2018 – are increasingly living in a car. independentbuy apartments and drive to work themselves.
The 38-year-old crown prince is an outspoken authoritarian, and he has coupled the social opening with a crackdown on dissent, jailing hundreds of critical Saudis from across the political spectrum. In January, Manahel al-Otaibi — a fitness instructor who campaigned on social media against Saudi Arabia’s system of male guardianship of women, which Prince Mohammed largely dismantled — was sentenced to 11 years in prison.
But the prince has a vested interest in using the kingdom’s oil revenues to build soft power and create a more welcoming image by promoting Saudi culture, art and kitchenand to win over both politicians and tourists.
Camel racing, a sport beloved by Bedouins in the Arabian Peninsula, is a small part of that movement. The kingdom’s goal is to make it “an internationally recognized sport,” Mahmoud al-Balawi, head of the Saudi Camel Racing Federation, said in an interview.
Basma Khalifa, a 42-year-old woman from AlUla who attended the camel race, said: “It is really nice that foreigners come,” adding: “Just as we learn their culture, they learn our culture.”
Though Mr. Dean was once an outsider, American celebrities now regularly show up in Saudi Arabia, often lured by lucrative deals and no longer deterred by the kingdom’s frequent criticism by human rights groups. Many of them end up in Al Ula, an area of twisting rock formations and ancient ruins that is the centerpiece of Prince Mohammed’s drive to transform the kingdom into a global tourist destination.
Will Smith visited last year, attend a camel race with Mr. Dean. Johnny Depp posed for a selfie in AlUla with the Saudi Arabian Minister of Culture. Even the elusive hip-hop star Lauryn Hill recently performed in AlUla.
“It’s funny to see,” Mr. Dean said. “Especially when you go back to the people who criticized me and told me not to go, and now they’re asking me where’s the best place to stay.”
At the tournament in AlUla this spring, camels foamed with exertion as they raced, knees wobbly, across the windy track. Instead of jockeys, they carried robots on their backs — a change that was made years ago after the practice of using child jockeys was linked to human rights violations. A herd of SUVs followed closely behind, filled with trainers who controlled the robots remotely.
Behind the velvet ropes of the VIP section, Mr. Dean sat near the head of the racing federation and was surrounded by Saudi princes. They cheered him on to a victory and reassured him when one of his camels, Enzo, finished in fourth place — helping Mr. Dean win about $200,000 of the more than $20 million prize pool.
Mr Dean’s Saudi citizenship is a sign that powerful Saudis value his relationship with the kingdom; citizenship is a rare privilege, granted by royal edict and unreachable even for most second or third generation foreigners. Many celebrities and Social media influencers who have come to Saudi Arabia in recent years are attracted by sponsorship or deals, but Mr Dean said that was not the reason he came there.
“You can easily come to Saudi Arabia and do business — there are endless opportunities,” he said. “But I just wanted the freedom to just have fun.”
Born in the Bronx and married to singer Alicia Keys, Mr. Dean has collaborated with Jay-Z, Beyoncé and Kanye West, among other artists. He once rapped that he “rich in the neighborhood.” Today he is simply rich, very rich in fact, and loaded with corporate debt. offersboard memberships and investments in property and contemporary art.
He is Muslim and his grandfather made a pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia in the 1970s. When Mr Dean first visited the kingdom in 2006, the idea of travelling there didn’t seem so outlandish.
He returned often and became fascinated by camel racing. A few years ago he decided to explore it himself. He called Saudi friends to help him find the best camel trainers and started to put his team together.
As a newcomer to the sport, Mr. Dean made mistakes by selling some of his fastest camels when competitors offered him huge sums of money.
Now he understands how seriously people take the sport, and that some of the sheiks from the Emirates and Qatar he competes against, spend millions of dollars on a single camel. He leaves the decisions about which camels to buy and how to race them to his Saudi trainers.
“I just make sure it’s cool,” Dean said.
After the races in AlUla ended, his wife, Mrs Keys, called him and he turned his phone camera around so she could see a sandstorm raging outside.
On his way out, he walked through the hall with a glass of pomegranate juice, stopping for photos with curious bystanders. Few in the camel racing world know him for his music, and that’s what he loves.
“It’s like I’m a completely new person,” he said.
As night fell, he visited a pop-up shop at the racetrack selling his Saudi Bronx-branded merchandise. Among the offerings: an $80 T-shirt featuring hip-hop star Tupac Shakur in a Saudi headdress.
Falih al-Buluwi, a prominent camel trainer who had worked with Mr. Dean, entered the shop with an entourage of half a dozen men. They posed for photos with him and danced together to Saudi music, clapping and waving.
Mr. Dean once lost friends and business because of his association with Saudi Arabia, he said. But he brushes aside criticism of that, insisting that “no place is perfect.”
“There would be less hatred in the world if people traveled more and spent time with other cultures,” he said.
That evening he stepped into the DJ booth of the roller skating rink he had helped establish in AlUla.
Disco balls made lights dance across the floor as he played classics by Saudi singers, interspersed with retro hip-hop hits.
Dozens of people watched from the sidelines as skaters circled the open-air rink, some skilled, others uncertain, tumbling to the ground. One man in a traditional white robe pulled it up to his knees and teetered outside, holding a friend’s hand for balance.
“Saudi Arabiaaaa!” shouted Mr. Dean, as the beat of a Snoop Dogg song kicked in.
